George Town, Great Exuma
‘Chicken Bay’
is a pseudonym that I have heard used by cruisers who are disparaging about George Town and the long stretch of land
of Stocking Island
that forms a protective barrier between it and the ocean. They say that
those who stay there for much of the winter are too chicken to go anywhere
else. We were being dissuaded from exploring it, being told that people who had
sailed there for several seasons had their own group of friends and
wouldn’t bother with newcomers. Not a bit of it!
Our spur to go
to George Town
was to meet our good friends John and Jane, who have come to join us for two
weeks. Their arrival coincided with three days of strong winds and
overcast skies, and when we went to explore the biggest town in the Exumas we
were surprised that we could explore all of it on foot in 25 minutes. We
had anchored very close to the town (in very little water) in order to give our
guests a dry arrival to the boat, and then motored across to the shelter of
Stocking Island, joining some 150 or more other yachts. For the next
three days every dinghy ride saw us needing dry clothes, but it just
didn’t matter – we had a fabulous time.
The cruising
community there is supportive, inclusive and very active. The morning
‘cruisers’ net’ is only ten minutes of radio time, but it
covers a weather report, business announcements, community events, personal
invitations and requests for technical help. Newcomers can announce their
arrival if they wish. Listening each morning we came to know about the
yoga, art, endurance swimming, aqua-aerobics, poker, trivial pursuit, a music
evening, beach party, rock-n-roll evening, and prayer meeting, plus fundraising
events for the regatta in March. We went to several of these events,
played volleyball, attended the church service on the beach, had two happy
hours on our boat with other cruisers and learnt how to blow a loud noise
through a conch shell. Every day we made the short trail to the stunning
Atlantic beach of fine, white sand and turquoise sea. As the ocean surged in it
was dashed on to a reef, which made swimming all the more exhilarating.
The easy-going
atmosphere of the whole place is epitomised by the Chat-n-Chill bar on Volleyball Beach – the person we
chatted to as we walked in for the first time knew all about us and our boat as
they had been sailing with David and
Heather in Maine on our first Discovery
55 – the more you go cruising, the more connections you make.
I shall leave
John and Jane to tell their story, but we are making our way back up through
the Exuma Islands
to their flight from Nassau
next week. Today has been great. We have swum in the ocean when it was
nearly 1 Km deep, caught another Mahi-Mahi and had the privilege of being up
close to huge ray, some bigger than 1m across, head to tail tip 2m long.
By fanning sand over themselves they are almost invisible, just an outline,
almost an imprint of something that has since gone. Suddenly you are
right on top of them. Not just one, two or even three. No - these
flying saucers are spinning out at speed in all directions from underneath the
dinghy. The water is so clear that from the yacht you can see on the sea-bed the
criss-crossing of tracks and thousands of excavated sand domes made by the
crabs that hide within them.
We have been
waiting for an occasion to drink a gift of champagne. Greatly enjoying
the company of John and Jane we celebrated a wonderful day by drinking it on
the foredeck. As we watched the setting sun streaking the sky with
crimson pink and golden rays and the full moon rose over the land. Its
shimmering light danced through the water like an electrical charge and bathed
the anchorage with such power that not only could we clearly see our anchor on
the seabed but also our shadow as we stood watching a nursing shark glide along
the side of our home. Quite magical.
